State panel recommends Lucas County Board of Elections director, deputy director be fired

BY TOM TROYBLADE POLITICS WRITER

Lucas County Board of Elections deputy director Dan DeAngelis, left, addresses election night problems during a special meeting with Secretary of State's Transparency Committee at the Government Center in Toledo.THE BLADE/LORI KINGEnlarge
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A transparency committee appointed by Secretary of State Jon Husted today recommended that three of four Lucas County Board of Elections members should be fired, along with the director and deputy director.

The committee will recommend to Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted that board members Jon Stainbrook, Ron Rothenbuhler and Tony DeGidio, and director Gina Kaczala and deputy director Dan DeAngelis be removed. It was recommended that board member John Irish retain his seat.

The decision came after a daylong meeting today with the board, which marked the committee's fourth hearing in Lucas County to date.

The hearing today focused on "chaos" at the Lucas County vote tabulation center during Tuesday's election, with blame pinned on Republican board member Jon Stainbrook by the director and deputy director of elections.

"We had chaos on election night and if I may be blunt, I think a lot of that was caused by a particular board member and his cohort," Mr. DeAngelis, a Democrat, said.

Ms. Kaczala made a similar accusation. She said that one of Mr. Stainbrook's allies, Meghan Gallagher, the former elections director, refused to allow Ms. Kaczala to swear her in as an election night observer.

Mr. Stainbrook downplayed the confusion over observers, saying other people were allowed in the vote tabulation area without being observers. He said his concern was for five missing data cards and what he believes was the director's refusal to acknowledge the missing cards.

The missing cards later were produced and Ms. Kaczala said they never contained any votes.

Only three of the four members of the transparency committee, Chairman Scott Borgemenke, Jennifer Brunner, and James Ruvolo, were at the meeting today. The fourth member, Jon Allison, was absent but was expected to be in contact by conference call before the group made its decision.

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